Comment by williamblake | Hacker News Reader

Comment by williamblake | Hacker News Reader

There is a network of artificial tunnels in Egypt called the Serapeum of Saqqara. It contains at least 24 large boxes made from single pieces of solid granite, allegedly moved there from a very interesting granite quarry several hundred miles away, then hollowed out to a mirror finish and a precision of a few ten-thousandths of an inch as tested by a precision machinist with a precision toolmaker's square who is also an engineer. After observing them, the engineer went on to ask the largest US companies in such business if they could make one. Only one responded and the answer was interesting. The place is real and the boxes, some as much as 90 tons (or the weight of more than fifty Prius cars) are not going anywhere. It's not in the books, nor is anything that explains it in the timeline but you can see it in person and test if for yourself. This place is only one of many that, by their nature and existence, question the conventional timeline of history

There is also a mathematician that, with some help from others, is doing a rigorous mathematical review of the conventional timeline of history and apparently there are some major problems with what has previously been accepted, written and taught. Does anyone know who I am referring to here?

How many people here are aware of the Serapeum mentioned above? Where does that level of precision work fit in with the timeline?

The qualities of the Saqqara boxes are entirely consistent with what we know about the mathematical and engineering sophistication of ancient Egyptians. There is nothing well-verified "not in the books" that upends the "conventional timeline". The only people claiming otherwise are Discovery Channel nutcase types who want you to believe, without real evidence, often with fake evidence, and always with fatuous reasoning, that angels and aliens intervened in ancient human history.

https://nathandickey.wordpress.com/2014/02/03/demythologizin...

I'm sorry that I have given you the impression that I or others like myself who discuss these questions believe in ancient aliens. I realize that this is a topic of confusion for many "debunkers". I don't accept belief as a valuable tool the process of discovering the truth, nor do I deem it necessary in the practice of science. Unbiased observation, free from belief is important.

And denotative language seems to be more effective than connotative language, at least as far as these kings of arguments are concerned. Logical argument is better than the disparagement of persons and groups when arguing and making a point. And staying on topic is also a good thing.

There is a growing discussion regarding belief systems within academia and various conventional sciences such as archeology. This seems to be a problem and if it is not cleaned up fairly quickly and replaced with something more logical, evidence-based, reality-accepting and legitimately scientific, the term "pseudoscience" will likely be used against those coming from the conventional side of these topics.

I don't see anything relevant from your link that explains the precision of the boxes I mentioned above. What do you know about ancient Egyptian mathematics and engineering that relates to this subject? I have read the entire page you linked to, so forgive me in advance for missing it.

Well the linked page says:

It’s also not surprising that they could create a flat surface or angles that are exactly-ish 90 degrees. The Egyptians boast some of the earliest known texts on geometry, like the Rhind Papyrus (from around 1650 BCE) and the Moscow papyrus (from about 1850 BCE). The latter papyrus indicates that the Egyptians could approximate pi (as 3.16049) and find the volume of a truncated pyramid. It stands to reason that 500 years later, they would be able to carve a flat surface and make a corner of exactly-ish 90 degrees.

If you look at marble statues, a square box is hardly amazing in comparison. "a few ten-thousandths of an inch" - close to micro meter precision - sounds almost like exaggeration, but some type of stone might just split in a very planar way.

> "a few ten-thousandths of an inch" - close to micro meter precision - sounds almost like exaggeration, but some type of stone might just split in a very planar way.

Not an exaggeration, just an extremely long time spent hand grinding/polishing with fine grit tools/paste.

Yes, there are some amazing marble statues. Have you seen the one where there is a fishing net cut from marble? Or the twins from Russia - two identical statues except for some obvious clumps of hair of hair, as if an image was taken at different times, in the breeze, and an artist or machine reproduced the statue from the image. I am assuming that most marble statues are at least an order of magnitude less precise than the granite box. Granite, by the way, is composed of different materials, such as, for example, feldspar and quartz. It doesn't break along a plane. Yes, a micrometer is .0001". Calipers, on the other hand, often only measure to .001" and would not be able to measure anything this precise.

I was referring to the precision of the boxes, not Brien Forester's quote about it, and more specifically the surface that is mirror polished to several ten-thousandths of an inch as estimated with a precision straight edge and toolmaker's square by someone who was a precision machinist, engineer, "master craftsman" (member of a professional guild), and a member of Mensa. These tools are so precise that if you drop them on the ground, handle them the wrong way or they end up in untrusted hands, they have to be re-calibrated and verified.

I apologize if this is an order of magnitude beyond most peoples' understanding and experience. It's probably not your occupation, so please don't take it personally. As an example of what this degree of precision is, consider a thin hair which is about four thousandths of an inch in diameter. If you slice that diameter up ten times, you will then have something that is as small as or at least reasonably approaching this measurement.

I see. Very interesting if true.

That mathematician is Fomenko. An entertaining read though history and linguistics experts just laugh at it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Fomenko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Chronology_(Fomenko)

Garry Kasparov is a Fomenko fan! As conspiracy theories go, I have to admit that it is pretty good.

The achievements of past cultures are often so impressive. I have seen ancient Egyptian artifacts (King Tut's exhibit) and on the same day got to see some ancient Mayan and very old Japanese Art. All of it interesting and quite amazing (especially the intricacy and exactness of the admittedly much more recent Japanese Art).

To keep these ancient achievements in perspective though I recall working at Texas Instruments in the 70's (doing real-time process control programming). One of my friends there related to me his experience in giving a job interview, years earlier, to a young machinist, classically trained in Germany. The job seeker brought his final project as a sample of his work. A highly polished, precisely square, solid cube of polished steel, or so it appeared to my friend. It had all been made with hand tools, no fancy milling or grinding machines.

My friend marveled at it, but then the young man said "watch this" and proceeded to slide the upper half of the solid cube on a dovetailed channel that connected the upper half of the cube to the lower half. My friend, a mechanical engineer, said he had never seen anything like it; it was so carefully made that the channel was invisible to him when the cube was squared. The main shaping tool used in the construction of this cube was simply a file.

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